Dozens of people attended a vigil in Plymouth Sunday night, in the wake of a round of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the area reported on social media.
“We've all sort of felt that we're in a small community, in a small state — we're sort of immune from what goes on elsewhere,” said Jane Kellogg of Campton, one of roughly 50 people who gathered near the Plymouth Common Sunday. “But now the message is, ‘No, we're not immune to it within our community.’ ”
One of the arrests was captured and posted to Facebook last week by Cathie LeBlanc, who had stopped for gas at Holderness on her way to work Tuesday morning.
“It was totally out of the blue,” she said. “I don't have any rapid response training or anything like that. It's not something I've really thought I would need to do. Honestly, it's shocking that it happened up here in rural New Hampshire.”
Other reports of ICE detentions in the area are still unconfirmed, which troubles Grace Garvey, an organizer with the group Central New Hampshire Indivisible.
“We're all grappling with the same kind of circumstances of misinformation and lack of understanding and lack of information,” she said.
The identity of the man in the video has not been made public, nor have the charges or reasons why he was detained by what appear to be ICE officers. ICE did not respond to NHPR’s request for confirmation of the social media reports, but the Plymouth Police Department confirmed that they were notified that ICE was in town on Tuesday morning.
The Plymouth police said they were not involved in the detention.
Ken Wolf of Thornton said he’s concerned by the lack of information about the ICE actions in his community. He wore a headlamp and stood outside the Common with his wife, Barbara, Sunday evening.
“My major concern is the people who are being taken off the streets who have committed no crimes to our knowledge, and only are detained because of the color of their skin,” he said. “And we find that abhorrent in this country today.”
